Summer is a great time of year — the sun shines, days get longer and our schedules loosen. This makes it the perfect time to have a little fun and a lot of R & R, but how much of your family’s downtime is being spent in front of the TV or the Xbox? We’ve compiled a list of our favorite activities for your kids and your family to do this summer…
Summer is a great time to get children involved in outdoor activities. When our children were young, our favorite family vacations were spent in northern Wisconsin. Each summer, we gathered our own four kids and a group of carefully chosen friends and headed north to play. Our plans included swimming, hiking, boating, fishing, game playing, bonfires — just about any kind of unstructured family fun. When we started the Wisconsin cabin tradition, our first cabins were pretty rustic, with few perks beyond running water. Over the years, the cabins have included a few more luxuries. I was determined to keep the focus on interactive play, so the first thing I did when we arrived was unplug the television and bury it in a closet. Initially, the kids were confused, but quickly caught on and took great pride in their ability to go without.
A few days ago, I shared the hours and hours of summer fun my kids had with Klutz books. Today I want to share a bit about what makes these books so special, along with some favorite titles and where to find them.
When my kids were young and it was time to plan their summer activities, I wanted to provide them plenty of multisensory opportunities. The “lazy days of summer” are not enough to keep kids happy and stimulated. They are much more engaged and satisfied when they’re busy making, doing, learning and playing. All throughout the summer we would sign up for a variety of organized activities, such as swimming lessons, sport camps, theater programs and art classes. And we stocked the house with lots of fresh new creative play options.
BinaryLabs introduce LetterReflex, an app for children ages 4+ featuring kinesthetic learning techniques to help kids tell the difference between b’s and d’s, p’s and q’s, as well as other commonly reversed letters and words. Letter reversals are to be expected by any young child learning the alphabet, the cause is a lack of directionality.
Tips for Introducing Your Children to Museums
Whether you frequently visited art museums as a child or not, the thought of bringing your kids near a Picasso can be quite scary. So many people, such a big space, equipped with so many potential disastrous situations. If taking your children to a museum is not your idea of a good time, here are some tips to make the process a bit more enjoyable:
The iPad is above and beyond the most sought after item for tech lovers, as it’s the go to place for all things internet, music, movies, and pictures. But more and more, parents are quickly realizing that it can be utilized as a valuable teaching tool for their children, and its mobility means it can go anywhere a child does. Amidst some of the the silly, useless apps out there are some that can make the difference in your child’s learning and vocabulary development. Here are our top iPad app picks for Elementary school learning by grade, from www.Education.com:
“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.” Lewis Grizzard
Spring is a fun time of year to engage with nature. These education games, activities and crafts are a great way to get your kids excited to get outside and get moving. A learning activity, Find an Animal Mate, teaches kids to imitate an animal and observe their surroundings to find the child who is their matching animal. Learn more about how to do this activity here .
